Director Andrew Nehme says the project will cost $90 million and should be completed by mid-2012, with 290 rooms across 27 floors.

“We see it as a key growth area and it’s been 12 years since the last hotel in Brisbane, so we’re getting in before the rest,” he says.

“It takes two years for a hotel to be up and running, a lot of other development proposals have fallen over, and we’re getting ahead of the pack for when the market turns again in two years time, and it’s already turning now.”

He believes that other hotel developers will likely follow suit, as a local hotel shortage is deterring overnight corporate stays in the city.

“We see a shortage of hotels in Brisbane, especially new hotels, so it made sense commercially to build one.

“A lot of the time if you come up on a day trip from Melbourne you’ll see the same people flying in the morning as those coming back in the evening, and a lot of that is because you can’t get hotel rooms in Brisbane.

“A lot of them are in mining and they think that if you’re paying $500 and can’t get something reasonable then why stay? We’re putting 290 rooms into the system.”

He says the hotel will follow the same standard as the global Novotel brand, with a pool, room service, restaurant, bar and function meeting rooms.